Worth Something
by kickstergal
Summary: She watched him for a few seconds before replying, fixing a nonchalant smile on her face. 'Doesn't matter what I want, Jane." Lisbon's POV, Oneshot. Lisbon ponders love.


DISCLAIMER: These characters are not mine, although I love to write them. I promise I'll put them back nicely.

Lisbon sat watching the newly- installed television in her office. The story that had made her look up from her paperwork was a couple that had just celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary, and obviously were still just as in love as they had been when they had first met, bickering amiably about walkers and false teeth, who had to go to the bathroom most during night, and who had the biggest attachment to the little dog that sat between them wagging its tail.

She was caught by a moment when the couple didn't realise that camera was on them. As the woman laughed at something the man whispered to her, he raised his hand to cup her face, drawing his thumb gently down her cheek, and she covered his hand with hers and whispered back.

Lisbon clicked off the television and sat back in her chair, paperwork forgotten.

That was love, she mused, when two people were equally fascinated by the other. When they wanted to fall into each other, to take hold of each other's hearts and not let go.

Lisbon caught herself smiling blissfully into space and gave herself a mental slap.

And _that_ was exactly why love was stupid.

It turned you inside out, remade you into someone that waited for a call, a touch, for their eyes to meet yours.

Or a conversation, any conversation, that might hint of something more, something that made you a team, an _us_ against the world. A _we_, instead of you and I.

She shook her head and picked up her pen, determined to finish at least one explanation of why Jane shouldn't be drawn and quartered for at least one law firm before it hit midnight.

Lisbon read the heading on the form and snorted. And wasn't it just perfect that the case in question was a young lady who thought her husband had been cheating on her? She'd killed him over a broken heart, and the kicker was he'd never been cheating in the first place. Jane had found out through his usual unorthodox methods and now the woman was claiming breach of privacy, as if she didn't have enough problems already.

She tsked impatiently, briskly signed her name and sealed the forms in an envelope.

Love made you irrational. It made you weak; fragile. It could make you hurt in ways and in places you never imagined existed let alone knew you were capable of, and still people, in their infinite wisdom came back for more.

Love broke your heart in a thousand small ways, all in the name of itself and she knew, she _knew_ she wasn't the only woman who ended up crying on the bathroom floor at two in the morning and then stared into the mirror afterward, trying to remember the woman she'd been prior to someone walking into her life and making her someone new. Someone she didn't necessarily like.

She paused, then shoved that line of thinking under her trusty mental rug, and grabbed a sip of coffee.

Love was primarily stupid because it made you hope.

It lit up something inside you that you couldn't turn off, couldn't forget, couldn't dismiss as a one-off incident or random crush. Because even the thought of that person, that one person that lit you like the Fourth of July, just the thought of the way threading your hands through the hair at the nape of their neck would feel...one stray thought and you were lost in Crazyville without a map.

Need and want turned into the same goddamned thing, and when the thought of just sitting side by side on the couch, talking about nothing almost, _almost_, calmed that fierce need for connection and yet did nothing for desire, for that craving of flesh on flesh and hours of time...well, you were pretty much in god-awful trouble, in her opinion.

She sighed.

"Problem?"

She shifted her gaze to the door. "Nope. You?"

Jane paused for the briefest second, and she knew if she had been anyone else at all, she wouldn't have noticed that hesitation.

"You're thinking about someone," he ventured.

She shrugged. "Probability would indicate this is likely."

He smiled, just the smallest bit. "You're thinking about someone in this room."

It was her turn to smile, although she wasn't even slightly amused. "Do you really want to go there?"

He stepped into the room, keeping his gaze on her face. "Do you?"

She watched him for a few seconds before replying, fixing a nonchalant smile on her face. 'Doesn't matter what I want, Jane."

He nodded, calmly enough, although she felt something in her heart twist as she caught the pain flickering through his eyes. She watched him take a deep breath, watched the way his hands fiddled with his cuff links, and her pulse kicked up slightly.

"For what it's worth, probability would indicate when even when I'm not supposed to be thinking about someone...it's highly likely that the someone I'm not thinking about is in this room."

He met her gaze, then quickly looked away. "Anyway, I'm just going to..." He made a _get out of here_ gesture towards the door.

"Jane?" She managed to smile at him as he turned back to look at her, although she imagined he was no more fooled by her than she was fooled by him, these days. "It's worth a lot."

He nodded at her, then slipped out the door. She resolutely picked up her pen.

Yeah. Love was stupid.

AUTHOR'S NOTE: I don't know really what this is. I was thinking about love, and how the truth of any situation has so many nuances. Nothing's simple, and my favourite Nothing's Simple characters are Jane and Lisbon, so here you go XD. Have a great week!


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